Self Care

As a college student it can be so stressful when trying to balance school, work, volunteering and research. It’s like your days are so busy that you dread leaving your bed every morning and once you lay in bed, it’s the best feeling in the world. For me, I’m personally not a big fan of 8ams and Friday classes. I remember when I had a semester when I had no Friday classes, I enjoyed not having to worry about touching my alarm and slept so peacefully. According to psych central, self care is an activity that we do in order to take care of ourselves. Ever since I’ve been in college I’ve heard multiple times how it’s important to practice self care but actually I find it hard for myself to actually do that on a regular basis because I feel like there is always something to be done. Even when I’m doing an activity that involves self care, in my head I’m like “I should be reading those PowerPoint slides for class or start studying for an exam”.

As an adult, the thought of “self care” may be an award or maybe part of our daily routine. As I get older I try to implement as much exercise as I can into my lifestyle. Usually on Saturday mornings I like to be at the gym and do cardio. Running on the track is a new thing that I’ve added to my gym routine (which brings me back to my track days in highschool). It’s definitely a great stress reliever for me. I remember my sophomore year in college, I decided to take a yoga course. I actually thought that it would be a pretty easy workout. But nope, I really began to hate the downward facing dog pose. We did it so many times in class that every time I hear the name of the pose my head hurts. However, by the end of each yoga session, I felt like my whole body was stretched and felt somewhat rejuvenated. I really liked the part when we would just lay on the ground and the whole room would be silent so that we could listen to our breathing. It helped me to just think about what I was doing in the moment and not think about other things going on around me.

Another thing that I like to do for self-care is going for walks. In the summer time, I remember I would usually walk to the grocery to pick up some food items but walking outside allowed me to enjoy the moment and to just focus on my breathing. I also like to walk by the lake sometimes and to just stare at the waves. It’s very relaxing and soothing by visually hearing and seeing the waves.

An activity that I absolutely enjoy (especially during the winter, because it’s indoors) is Zumba. I usually go to the Klotsche center every other Thursday to attend a Zumba class and it is pretty active! I don’t have a favorite trainer but I enjoy the music selection for the dance routines. It’s even super exciting when you go with friends because then everyone can just be embarrassed together when you can’t roll your hips a certain way or shake ass.

Biking close by the lake is also my fave. The last time when I went with a friend he played all my favorite songs on his phone and it was a great way to end the summer before we went back to school. I held a huge snake that day because a man at the park decided to bring his pet snake to the park. I held the snake, took my photo, gave back the snake and continued biking like nothing just happened.

One thing currently that I’m into is oil diffusers! My mom bought a whole bunch around the house and decided to send me one from amazon and it’s pretty nice. It’s called art naturals. The oil diffuser that I currently use came with 8 different oils. Each oil has a particular way for helping you relax. My favorite so far is peppermint and lavender. The lavender scent helps me to wind down after a long, hectic day and peppermint helps me to focus on homework and gives me a “spa” like vibe. I also like the fact that it lights up in a different range of colors which makes it so much cooler (haha I sound like I’m five). What’s also nice about it is that when it’s done, it automatically shuts off and you can set it to run for an hour or even 3 hours.

Here’s everyone’s favorite….”NETFLIX AND CHILL”. Okay really what I mean is putting on your favorite facial mask and watching a movie or series that you love when you have that time to just decompress. Right now I’m on season 10 on grey’s anatomy (very addicting, it reminds me of when I binged watched Scandal because it was so GOOD! P.S. SHONDA RHIMES IS AWESOMEEEE IDC IDC IDC”. I also used to watch the office on Netflix and it was hilarious, Dwight was my favorite character. He had no chill. Lol

There is probably tons of activities that I didn’t mention for practicing self-care but the common denominator in pretty much everything I wrote about is that it’s important to find your happiness right now. Not with getting through the week, a job, a relationship, a new environment. Find it right now! (saw a post on Instagram and it spoke to me). I know sometimes for me I think that graduation or getting a boyfriend would make me so much happier in life but really finding your joy in the little things can be so rewarding! I’m not saying it’s horrible to have milestones, but it’s awesome to know that no matter where you are in life, you are the only one who can decide what makes you happy. As I’m writing right now I just realized that I never process how I happy I am at a moment, I just go through it and maybe I’m more worried about putting something on snap or my Instagram story. I’m planning to challenge myself to embrace my happiness more and actually process it. I definitely need to spend less time on my phone. I actually get a notification now on how much time I spend on my phone and what apps I use regularly. Such a cool feature because now I can really push myself to be on my phone less often. But the main point is that you should go grab your happiness !!!!!!!!!!